Three University Professors Enthuse Over Theatre Drive

Three University professors yesterday called Monday's announcement of the administration's support for a theatre fund drive one of the most exciting things which has happened since they have been at Harvard.

Archibald MacLeish, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory; Harry T. Levin, professor of English; and Robert H. Chapman, assistant professor of English; all greeted the news with only slightly diluted enthusiasm.

The most restrained was MacLeish who, although "delighted with this tremendous stop forward," cautioned that the physical theatre itself is not nearly enough. What is needed, he said, along with the building of a theatre is a "fuller development at once of a creative program of theatrical activity at the University."

He called for all interested individuals and groups to get together to consider "the sort of theatrical program we want here."

Levin termed the announcement "the turning point we have all been waiting for and working for." Dramatic activity at Harvard, without a theatre, he said, has been like "Hamlet without the Prince," but "at last that strategic role has been filled."

"For too many years," Levin declared, "Harvard has been untrue to herself in looking the other way while other institutions were advancing in the field of drama, not that there has been any lack of interest here. Undergraduate groups have shown all kinds of enterprise and ingenuity in overcoming official discouragement."

He added, "The cordial welcome that President Pusey gave to John Mason Brown's generous project is bound to be the prologue to better things."

Chapman pointed to the great effect which a new, well-equipped theatre will have on the quality of undergraduate pro- ductions and, through them, on student interest in local theatre. He stressed the pitiful inadequacy of the present facilities, namely Pi Eta, Sanders; Agassiz, and Fogg Court. "It's really hard to produce first rate plays in any of these places," he added.

He also declared that the building of a really fine theatre for local productions would undoubtedly draw to Harvard many students talented and interested in the theatre who are now going elsewhere